Report - Tone Mills Fulling & Dyehouse, Wellington Feb '12

[mookster]

I remember ever since I first saw the reports on this place a year and a bit ago, I realised I wanted, no, needed to see it.

And so a little under a month ago a plan was hatched with Treadstone to finally make the trek down to Somerset and realise that thought. It was very nearly called off due to it being -10 in Oxford at 8.30am this morning but I persuaded Mr. Treadstone to wait an hour and a bit to see if it got slightly less cold - and so, two hours later than planned we were on our way, diverting into the local Oxford Halfords to purchase a fuse for the windscreen washer motor which had iced up and blown the previous night when it had gotten down to minus something ridiculous degrees Celsius. A largely fault free journey was had an 3 hours later we arrived in Wellington for a truly fantastic explore.

Many thanks to Styru for the advice and accompanying us briefly, was great to finally meet you

I'm sure many of you know the history already but here it is in potted form:

Tone Works was the dyeing and finishing works established by Fox Brothers and Co of Tonedale Mills, Wellington, at the confluence of the River Tone and the Back Stream. The site is shown on the Tithe map of 1839, and the works was enlarged and altered over the next 80 years. In 1912 the site was described as having "perhaps the largest Indigo Dye House in England". The site continued in production until March 2000.

If I could go back tomorrow I would, but the 3-hour journey is a killer!

Thanks for looking, more here Tone Mills Fulling & Dyehouse